


Hide and Seek

by upthenorthmountain (aw264641)



Series: Kristanna Family [2]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 07:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aw264641/pseuds/upthenorthmountain





	Hide and Seek

Adela is five, and she is the best at hide and seek. **  
**

Karl would say that he’s the best, because he’s oldest, but he isn’t. Adela is better at finding little corners, at tucking herself away, and she’s definitely best at keeping quiet. Lilly can’t keep quiet at all, she always giggles and gives herself away. She giggles all the time, sometimes for long enough that she gives herself hiccups. She’s only three so she can’t think of good places, anyway, and the only times Adela gets found is when Lilly squeezes in with her. Sometimes she minds and sometimes she doesn’t.

Karl doesn’t have as much time to play any more because he’s eight and he has a tutor. He makes it sound like something very grand, having a tutor, but it doesn’t sound much fun. Adela will have a governess soon and she’s not sure if she’s looking forward to it or not. She likes her nurse, but she does want to learn to read so she can read all the books in the library.

(She asked Mama one time if she had read all the books in the library, and Mama said that she’d read a lot of them but not all, she didn’t think anyone had read them all. No, not even Aunt Elsa. So Adela decided that one day she would read every single one.)

The library used to be good for hide and seek but now Karl knows all her hiding places there. She’ll have to find more or wait until he forgets. Her best ever place to hide was in the window seat in Aunt Elsa’s study, the curtain was half-closed and she was there for ever such a long time - she didn’t get bored because she could see down into the castle courtyard and she could watch everyone coming and going. Aunt Elsa was sitting at her desk writing with her scratchy pen and she didn’t even notice Adela was there until it was dinner time and everyone was looking for her, not just Karl but Nurse and Birgitta and Mama and Papa. She’d nearly got into a lot of trouble for that, until she pointed out that the rule was ‘don’t disturb Aunt Elsa when she’s working’ and she hadn’t, and then Mama had laughed and Aunt Elsa had smiled so she knew it was okay. But the rule was changed so now they weren’t allowed in the study at all any more unless invited, and Adela was a bit sad. Sitting watching the people and listening to the pen scratching and papers shuffling had been very comfortable somehow.

Mama used to play, she can remember Mama playing, and usually hiding with Lilly and getting found straight away. But then Mama didn’t want to play games like that any more because she was tired and now there’s a new baby brother. Babies aren’t very interesting and she’d rather have had another sister, maybe one who wasn’t as  _loud_  as Lilly. The only sort of brother she knows about is Karl and he can be tiring because he always has to be in charge and be best at everything and tell everyone what to do.

Papa says, You know you don’t have to agree with him all the time, Della. It’s okay to tell him you’d rather play something else. It’d be good for him.

But she doesn’t mind, or not much. She’d rather play by herself a lot of the time anyway. Sometimes she just sits in the window and makes up stories about the people below. Or she draws pictures of imaginary places and the people who live there, and strange animals and sometimes dragons and mermaids and everything else from the fairy tale book that Papa reads at bedtime. Or she goes looking for new hiding places.

Sometimes there are so many people, everywhere, and you just need to be by yourself. But it’s okay. Adela is the best at hide and seek.


End file.
